UPDATE 3-Manulife narrows loss but delays C$4 bln profit target

* Net loss EPS C$0.14 vs estimated loss C$0.31

* Pushes back profit target

* Company takes C$1 bln charge

* Stock falls 1.5 percent, underperforming rivals

By Cameron French

Nov 8 Manulife Financial Corp on
T hursday reported a narrower loss in the third quarter due to
improved financial markets-related results but said it has
delayed its profit goal of C$4 billion by a year to 2016, citing
macro-economic conditions.

The loss, which came amid stronger-than-expected results at
Canadian insurance rivals Sun Life Financial and
Great-West Lifeco, put additional pressure on
Manulife's already struggling shares.

Canada's largest insurer and also owner of U.S. insurer John
Hancock, Manulife warned last quarter that it was rethinking its
goal of C$4 billion in net profit by 2015.

The company now projects to hit the C$4 billion level by
2016 and says it is a goal for "core" profit, rather than net
profit. It admits net profit could be lower than the core
earnings, which exclude the direct impact of financial markets
as well as certain other items.

The shift is just the latest setback for a company that has
endured sharp quarterly losses over the past four years, due to
the impact of weak stock markets and low bond yields.

"It's a long road traveled (for Manulife) that seems to be
getting longer with the push back of the core earnings target,"
said Gavin Graham, president of Graham Investment Strategy.

Under Canadian accounting rules, life insurers must
mark-to-market their huge investment portfolios each quarter to
make sure they can cover long-term policy obligations. If they
cannot, they must take reserves to make up the shortfall.

Manulife Chief Executive Donald Guloien has worked to reduce
the company's exposure to markets and said o n T hursday the
company had achieved its equity and interest rate hedging
targets two years ahead of 2014 goals.

"This hedging comes at a cost, but it's a cost worth
bearing, as it substantially reduces the volatility of our
earnings going forward," he said on a conference call.

C$1 BILLION CHARGE

However, past market movements still took a toll on the
company's results for the quarter, as Manulife took a C$1
billion charge due to a shift in actuarial assumptions related
to certain insurance products. It also took a C$200 goodwill
charge.

All told, Manulife's net loss was C$227 million ($228
million), or 14 Canadian cents per share, though that was much
narrower than the company's year-earlier loss of C$1.28 billion,
or 73 Canadian cents per share. The result also topped analysts'
estimates of a net loss of 31 Canadian cents per share.

"It was pretty much an in-line quarter, which is unusual,"
said National Bank Financial analyst Peter Routledge, referring
to market-related volatility in recent quarters.

The results took an C$88 million hit from equity market and
interest rate movements during the quarter, but that compared
with a much larger C$889 million markets-related loss in the
year-earlier quarter.

Core profit, a new measure for Manulife, slipped to C$556
million from C$624 million, driven in part by weakness in
Manulife's Asian division, which is the segment where it expects
the strongest growth in the future.

RIVALS GAIN

The result follows a stronger-than-expected profit by rival
Sun Life Financial late o n W ednesday and similar
results by Great-West Lifeco on Thursday.

Sun Life, Canada's No. 3 insurer, said it swung back to a
third-quarter profit from a year-ago loss due to stronger
markets.

Great-West, the country's second-largest insurer, earned a
net C$520 million ($521.07 million), or 55 Canadian cents a
share, in the quarter ended Sept. 30, ahead of expectations of a
profit of 51 Canadian cents a share.

Shares of Manulife, which have risen by 9 percent so far
this year but trade at barely a quarter of their all-time high
from 2007, fell 1.5 percent to C$11.82 on the Toronto Stock
Exchange.

That lagged Sun Life, which rose 3.9 percent, while
Great-West, which has considerably less market exposure than its
rivals, gained 0.4 percent.

Graham said despite Manulife's profit issues he felt the
shares were a good buy at current levels.

"If you are seeing no further fall from these levels for
long-term bond yields and maybe even a little rise... then you
will actually see these stocks go substantially higher," he
said.

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, Dec 9 U.S. President-elect
Donald Trump on Friday was expected to name a senior Goldman
Sachs banker to coordinate economic policy across his
administration, turning again to Wall Street for expertise in
managing the world's largest economy.

Dec 9 A former Cantor Fitzgerald trader has been
indicted on charges that he defrauded investors by lying about
the price of mortgage bond transactions he handled for them
after the financial crisis, U.S. prosecutors said on Friday.

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